15+ Women's Health Innovations That Could Save Your Life

In honor of National Women's Health Month, Everyday Health challenges women to take charge of their health. The first step: Get informed and empowered with this survey of major innovations in five key conditions — from heart disease to breast cancer — affecting women.

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Imagine a breast cancer screening that doesn’t pinch and major surgeries performed with the help of robots, leaving only the smallest of scars. These and other innovations of recent years and more breakthroughs on the horizon are transforming the diagnosis and treatment of the following conditions affecting women: heart disease, breast cancer, fibroids, osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, and gestational diabetes.

Heart Disease: The Facts

Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women in America, accounting for one in four female deaths in 2007, the last year for which figures are available. Public health campaigns seem to be making some headway — since 1999 there has been a 26 percent reduction in incidence of heart disease among women — but there’s a long way to go. For decades, heart disease was under-diagnosed in women because their symptoms generally differ from men’s. The signs of heart attack in women can also be subtle, and therefore easily dismissed or attributed to other health issues.

Gender-specific screenings and tests are shining new light on detection and prevention of this terrible disease.

Big Advance: Recognizing Women’s Heart Disease Symptoms

“Ten to fifteen years ago, if a woman came in a doctor’s office with chest pain, but an angiogram showed that there were no blockages in her coronary arteries, she would have been sent home,” says Malissa Wood, MD, co-director of the Corrigan Women’s Heart Health Program at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. “We now know that women are more likely than men to have disease of the small blood vessels around the heart. If you inject dye into the arteries for an angiogram, it doesn’t show up in those tiny blood vessels, so the blockage is not detected.”

Now, in such cases, doctors would conduct further tests, including an MRI stress test, to determine whether the patient is about to have a heart attack. Other more subtle markers of heart disease in women include fatigue, tightening in the jaw, burning in the chest, shortness of breath, and arm and neck pain.

“If you have any of these symptoms associated with exertion or you have multiple symptoms, you should get them checked out,” says Dr. Wood.

Another recent finding: Women who, during pregnancy, have had pre-eclampsia, high blood pressure, or gestational diabetes have a higher risk of developing heart disease five to 15 years after they deliver; and women with the autoimmune diseases lupus or rheumatoid arthritis are also at higher heart disease risk.

“Women who have these conditions need to get screened for heart disease earlier than they otherwise might have, and control their risk factors like weight and cholesterol,” says Jennifer Mieres, MD, a cardiologist at North Shore-LIJ Health System in New York.

Small Wonder: The Truth About Aspirin

Taking one low-dose aspirin daily has long been thought to help prevent heart attacks in people of all ages. And it does — in men.

But studies have shown swallowing a daily aspirin has little effect on women “except that it may be useful in women over 65 in preventing stroke,” says Dr. Mieres. Unless you’re in that category, “consider aspirin one less pill to take.”

Stay Tuned for: More Gender-Specific Screenings

Researchers are working on better ways to evaluate heart disease in women, and even assess risk factors like high cholesterol. For example, a recent study showed that a woman’s menstrual cycle can impact her cholesterol levels: High-density lipoprotein (HDL) levels peak around ovulation, when estrogen levels are also highest, and total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels decline a couple of days after ovulation.

“Until recently, we have not had scientific information to help us understand better how to predict, diagnose, prevent, or treat heart disease in women,” says Vivian Pinn, MD, director of the federal government’s Office of Research on Women’s Health. “This type of research is not only needed, but will be extremely beneficial in helping to improve the health of women.”

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